Neurosurgical procedures, at times, will require imaging and immobilization of the head simultaneously. The immobilization of the head is maintained by a head frame that attaches to the head using pins, typically made of titanium. Titanium is the most common choice because it is cost effective, biocompatible, and fracture resistant. Regardless of the many excellent qualities of titanium, titanium has a high density which creates very large and dense artifacts in its x-ray trajectory path. These artifacts can cause masking of important information and reduce visualization of critical anatomy.
Earlier attempts to resolve these artifacts include measures of re-attachment of the head frame, prior image fusion, or by ignoring the issue with no solution and continuing on with the procedure. These solutions are not ideal as they introduce unnecessary risk of injury to the patient and risk of missing a potentially important aspect of an image. Another solution is the replacement of titanium with carbon fiber or sapphire pins, but this comes at a great expense. The present disclosure describes a procedure to redirect artifacts caused by titanium skull pins in order to overcome the problems described above in an efficient and cost-effective manner.